Jonathan Redwine - Principled Leadership

When my wife Elizabeth and I decided to move to New Jersey, we chose West Orange for its rich diversity, relative affordability, proximity to New York City, access to green spaces, great public schools, and the quality of life we observed as we searched for a starter home with our first child, who was about 6 months old at the time, in tow. We now have lived in West Orange for 20 years and are raising our kids Nathaniel, Cal, Morgan and Lila here. All four of our children attend or graduated from the West Orange Public Schools. Elizabeth is a Lecturer in the English Department at Seton Hall University and I am an attorney who specialized in regulatory law and securities litigation. After 20 years of practicing law in New York City, in 2021 I decided to retire early and dedicate my energy to more meaningful issues and projects. If you are interested in learning more about my background, local volunteer work and education, you can see my full resume here. 

I have always moved in and out of public service, beginning with service as a Peace Corps Volunteer English teacher in the mid-1990s and continuing through my first job as an attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. I then worked in a large law firm in New York and with public companies prior to retiring from the practice of law in 2021. Beginning in 2017 I became more interested in our local government, attending Council meetings and learning as much as I could about how local, state, and federal representation works for us. In addition to working to elect Mikie Sherrill to be our representative in Congress and working on Terry Trigg Scales’ winning bid for Board of Education, I managed my friend Cindy Matute-Brown’s successful campaign for Town Council in 2018. 

After Cindy’s election, I served on our Zoning Board of Adjustment for approximately three years, hearing requests for zoning exemptions from individual residents and from developers, often finding myself a lone voice asking for environmental improvements like renewable energy resources be incorporated into projects. In 2021 I agreed to join the West Orange Cannabis Committee and worked alongside our Chief of Police, Councilwomen Cindy Matute-Brown and Michelle Cassalino, and other leaders in our town to plan for reasonable ways that West Orange might benefit from New Jersey’s evolving cannabis laws. We established a thorough and careful review process for applicants to request support from the Township for proposed businesses, but were cautious to limit the number of applicants that could be approved. Balancing the potential revenue benefit that such businesses present to our town while preserving or improving our quality of life was critical and, I think, achieved with the deliberate process we established in that committee. 

More recently, following Mayor McCartney’s inauguration in January 2023, I approached her and explained my concerns about our town’s plan to address climate change and how we planned to follow the New Jersey Energy Master Plan. I asked whether our town has a plan to curtail use of fossil fuels and how we consider climate change when budgeting or planning for priorities in town and offered to help create such a plan. Several months later, in September 2023, Mayor McCartney asked me to Chair a new Sustainability Committee within the Township’s Environmental Commission so that we could gather data about West Orange’s emissions and could begin to plan to integrate renewable energy sources to power Township resources, in line with the Energy Master Plan. For our state to meet its Energy Master Plan goals, municipalities must also work on plans for energy transition. To begin that planning process, in our first three months, the Sustainability Committee created an inventory of our Township’s municipal fleet and with help from Sustainable Jersey, began tracking energy usage for each of the Township’s gas and electric meters. This year, we are working to quantify West Orange’s total carbon footprint and are drafting a Community Energy Plan, which will help us to identify projects that help to move the Township in line with the state Energy Master Plan. The Community Energy Plan will be completed over the next 12 months, and I anticipate it will include plans for things like solar carports on Township properties, public electric vehicle charging stations, improved efficiency in municipal buildings, and recommendations for vehicles that could be replaced with alternative fuel vehicles. All of these projects need to be planned and goals set for completion within 3 to 5 years so that we may capture as much energy and monetary savings as possible.    

I believe that in the next four years, our elected officials must work locally to protect our environment and systematically to reduce West Orange’s greenhouse gas emissions while cutting our energy costs. We have to look at, for example, energy production and usage patterns to find efficiency opportunities to implement renewable resources. We need to also examine transportation in town to find efficiencies and to create safer spaces for pedestrians, cyclists, seniors, and children so that we may enhance the sense of community that we all enjoy in West Orange. We need to examine how we serve every resident of our town and create a plan for things like a new library branch to serve those who are now finding the library inaccessible. We need our Councilmembers to dedicate themselves to crafting budgets that reflect our shared values so that we may invest in infrastructure and services that support our residents' high quality of life. We need to move away from the lack of planning that currently plagues West Orange if we are to address issues like property taxes, revenues for the Township, and infrastructure investments to maintain or further improve our town. With prudent planning we can invest wisely to further improve our town to make West Orange an even more desirable place to live, work and raise our children.